#44

“A lie.”

I answered briefly.

“I didn’t want such a lie.”

“A lie for me, not for you.”

Silence.

“I thought even if I mistakenly thought I loved you, it could calm this nauseating feeling.”

Shattered silence. And from that moment on.

I heard Johannes’ breathing gradually quicken. His eyes and mouth, which had shown no emotion like a statue washed with frozen water, began to tremble little by little. As if in reaction, I pushed my emotions to the back of my eyes. Because this wasn’t the end. I needed to… a little more….

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Because I had to become cruel.

“We’re siblings. It’s against morality… isn’t it? This relationship, it makes my skin crawl. Doesn’t it for you? Isn’t it disgusting? Johannes, I’m… scared. I’m so scared… I can’t bear it anymore….”

I swallowed my breath. I almost screamed. It was because Johannes, who had been standing like a statue, suddenly rushed at me. It was so abrupt that the sharp wind blew my hair.

Johannes, gripping the window frames on both sides as if to trap me, lowered his face close to my forehead. It was close enough to feel the heat of his skin.

“It’s not obvious.”

Johannes’ whisper falling on my cheek was trembling more than ever. He bent his waist deeply and looked straight at me. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I ended up averting my gaze to one side. Johannes didn’t allow me to look away and followed.

“It’s not obvious.”

He was desperate. From his breath brushing my cheek or his heaving chest, I could tell how urgent he was. As there was nowhere left to avoid his gaze, I finally lowered my head. I just opened my mouth and rambled on.

“Even if you deny it, nothing changes. This revulsion is mine. Ah, I can’t express it in words. How much… how much… I hated the sight of your body lying next to me. How uncomfortable and irritating it was to endure your gaze on me or your touch.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t you understand? I have no regrets. Anyway….”

“Inette.”

“I never had any feelings for you as a person.”

“Stop.”

“Not even for a single day….”

“Stop….”

“I’ve never loved you. And even now, it’s the same….”

I couldn’t finish my words. It was because Johannes arbitrarily pulled me into an embrace. His nose bridge pressed into my cheek, and his lips parted my hair, searching for mine.

He seemed like a person completely cornered. There was no restraint in his violent gestures. I turned my forehead this way and that to avoid his kiss. Johannes cupped my chin with one hand.

“Don’t…!”

I gripped his arm tightly. I twisted my face with all my strength. But I couldn’t budge.

“Don’t avoid it.”

“No.”

“Inette.”

“Don’t….”

“Ah, damn it. Inette.”

Finally, Johannes let out a rough breath like a cry.

“Please.”

The desperately clinging lips and painfully contorted eyes were all burning pain. It seemed like a desperate resistance to avoid a fatal wound, or a dying plea begging not to be abandoned.

“I was wrong.”

“Johannes, stop…!”

“So, please. Please.”

Johannes whispered breathlessly. The frantically pouring pleas dug into my heart.

I wanted to ask. What exactly did you do wrong? However, he didn’t seem to know what he was saying. He just desperately sought my lips.

It didn’t take long for him to bite my parted lower lip. Finally, Johannes, positioned accurately, came straight into my inside. Without time to stop, in an instant, a tenacious kiss began. My vision….

Flashed white. I felt like I was melting. The moist sensation of licking tender flesh, entangling with me with all his might, made me feel like I was melting from the tip of my tongue. That sweetly melted thing all flowed down the inside of my tilted back neck. I had to swallow it without being able to move.

I was out of breath. Having succeeded in silencing the voice rejecting him with his own mouth, Johannes wrapped one arm around my waist and lifted me down from the window frame.

My toes, buried in his chest as I was lowered, touched the cold floor, but I couldn’t step properly. I was half suspended in the air. Johannes, who had lifted me up, pushed my back against the wall with a thud.

“I thought it was okay. I was too hasty. I was wrong. It was all my fault.”

Between kisses that felt like my whole body would shatter, he whispered breathlessly.

“If you tell me to wait, I’ll wait. If you tell me to endure, I’ll endure. Just don’t push me away like this. Please. Oh, please.”

His voice seemed to be tearing out all his heartstrings. The urge to cry uncontrollably clogged my throat. I wrapped my arms around his nape.

Flinch. Johannes’ shoulders, focused on me, jumped slightly. Exhaling a mournful sigh, Johannes dug into me again. He strongly grasped my waist, pressing me even closer to his body.

I caressed Johannes back as he rushed at me like someone starved for days. I stroked his cheek, slowly, opened my mouth a little more and deeply accepted him.

“Inette…. Inette.”

Still, unable to calm down at all, his lips tracing down my neckline were impatient, as if he would undress me right away.

On that night when the candlelight burned like twilight, his bare waist, so smooth it was dazzling in the bright daylight, inevitably came to mind. His hair, shaking messily under my chin, was blindingly beautiful. Plop.

Again plop.

Tears fell.

“…You’re the worst.”

I could feel the sensation of his back tensing up sharply inside his thick top with my fingertips.

“Your mouth and body are separate? How can you not hold back even for a moment…?”

Johannes’ face came up in front of me, breaking like a snap. Our eyes met. Eyes that looked like they would cry. Eyes that were hard to distinguish whether angry or sad. His firmly closed jaw, his shoulders, were all trembling.

I remember that every word I managed to utter was like a convulsion, as I was trembling just as much.

“Today… I’ll try to endure even if it’s disgusting.”

I’m sorry.

“Even though I feel like throwing up, even though I want to run to the south right now, yes, today somehow… I’ll try to endure.”

I’m sorry.

“Go ahead and fulfill all your filthy lust today. I’ll twist my body diligently to look good to you and moan sincerely enough to sound good…. So….”

I raised both hands. I covered my wet rag-like eyes. The words I uttered then….

“Don’t ever think of disgracing me again.”

They didn’t even hurt.

My movements felt like a thousand pounds.

Johannes didn’t stop me as I walked to the bed. As I took a step forward, his body twisted, making way while maintaining a certain distance from me. Thud. I sat on the edge of the bed.

The moonlight, finely torn as it entered the dark bedroom, was pale. Johannes’ coat, standing askew as if retreated, was fluttering low.

Why was he standing alone so stubbornly, as if there was anything left to protect? His back was like the sword of a defeated soldier stuck askew in the ruins of a fallen castle. With his hands grasping the air, his head slightly drooped.

Blankly.

One of his deathly pale cheeks was unusually red. The trace of being slapped by me seemed to stand out on his body. The handprint was cold and hot like the trace of branding with an ice-heated iron. It also seemed like an indelible brand.

I lay face down on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. Johannes didn’t come to the bed. Time passed silently like that, until even my body lying on the bed grew chilly in the night air.

Crack.

There was a sound of something breaking. I quickly raised my body and looked in the direction of the sound. Johannes was nowhere to be seen. There was no one in the place where he had been standing, as if it were a lie. Only the wind blowing through the wide open window and the curtains shaking in it were chilling.

I rushed to the window frantically. I leaned out, almost hanging my belly on the windowsill, and looked around outside, but Johannes was nowhere to be seen.

Only the well area could be seen below. There, blue moonlight was pouring down like powder. Like fragments of shattered breath. Only the darkness that erased people was so dazzling.

Quietly.

The loneliness of nothing happening returned to its place.

Johannes seemed determined never to seek me out again. As I didn’t ask first, there was no other way to hear news of him. But even from this distant feeling, my heart was all like thin ice. For some reason, even Griselda spoke less than usual.

And not long after, everyone except me became busy. Preparations for my wedding had begun. For this, everyone in the fortress sought me out, who had been like a shadow in a secret room, but the footsteps of the one person who had been mine were cut off.

In the women’s quarters, only the shell-like me and the noisy time remained like silent furniture. Putting aside all the fuss as if it were someone else’s business, as I looked out the window, I often had such illusions.

The sweetness on this tongue was just my poor delusion, and I’m still going through the loneliest autumn of my seventeen years… Quietly.

Three days.

The banquet lasted for three days.

Instead of the old man who was too weak to attend the ceremony, I had to hold his son’s hand. My father and Johannes stood at opposite corners of the priest. As I glimpsed while marching, Johannes was wearing flawless tournament armor and a splendid ceremonial coat.

To see you like that, on a day like this.

It was our first reunion in dozens of days, but I lowered my gaze. After that, I didn’t even glance at Johannes, who had a pale face and expressionless. He also seemed to barely look at me, with his eyes half-lowered.

However, throughout the sacrament, there was a nail piercing my bones.

To be precise, from the moment I knelt down and bowed.

I could immediately feel the dead gaze hitting my forehead. That gaze didn’t leave for a moment until I stood up again.

It was like an eternity. It was a long time when the veins on the back of my hand resting on the sword hilt bulged blue, and the angelica leaves decorating the veil fell innocently. My second wedding was that long and….

Also beautiful.

***

Kretzman.

Johannes returned today.

He is looking for me.

I can hear the sound of his footsteps searching every corner like combing for lice.

I must hide this.